Trump’s Terrific Trade Tariffs

LightWorker111

US President Donald Trump continues to deliver on his campaign promises today as he announced plans for global trade tariffs to “be very fair” and “protect the American worker.”

At issue are taxes on steel and aluminum imports – 25% and 10% respectively – from a long list of foreign countries, both friendly (EU) and not-so-much (China).

Trump’s idea is to level the American trade playing field by discouraging economically the foreign exporters who take business from domestic and allied producers.

Eight years of President Barack Obama resulted in major trade capitulations, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP. In order to get that invitation-to-import legislation passed, Obama passed the Trade Promotion Authority, granting Congress only a yes or no vote on trade deals.

Although Obama’s 2008 campaign position opposed and promised to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) if Mexico and Canada refused to renegotiate its terms – he didn’t follow through after either of his elections. The Hill reported that trade with Mexico has tripled under NAFTA.

Trump is now undoing the free and easy open-door trade rules bequeathed by his predecessors. Naturally, bold and decisive action like this is drawing fevered criticism, not only from affected countries abroad, but elected representatives right here at home.

Profits of doom predict a horrific trade war, with the US versus the world. However, this is an unlikely scenario, which may be why Trump’s top economic adviser and opponent of trade restrictions, Gary D. Cohn, said on Tuesday that he was resigning, according to The New York Times. It would be oh so embarrassing to be proved wrong on this, wouldn’t it?

The principal reason a trade war is unlikely is that other countries, by and large, just don’t have that much to offer the US that we can’t produce ourselves. From World’s Top Exports, here is the Top 10 List of US imports, which totaled “$2.409 trillion worth of goods from around the globe in 2017, up by 3.6% since 2013 and accelerating by 7.2% from 2016 to 2017:”

Another way to look at world trade is to cast a glance down Wikipedia‘s list of the United States’ largest trading partners. The European Union (EU), China and Canada top this list.

So when the EU threatens to stop sending us their T-shirts, bed linen, chewing tobacco, cranberries and orange juice – oh yes, and a bit of steel – it’s a bit of a yawner, and certainly anti-climactic.

EU leaders know that their threats of a trade war are weak, to say the least. After Trump tweeted a defense of his tariff plan, calling it “good and easy to win,” Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, responded with a tweet of his own, advising that, for the EU, trade wars were “bad and easy to lose.”

To reassure US allies that their flow of American dollars is free from constrictions and constraints, Trump proposed during a presidential Cabinet meeting that our best friends (Canada, Mexico, and Australia, notably) be exempt from paying any import taxes.

It is important to understand, as revealed by The New York Times, where our POTUS is going with these proposed trade sanctions:

“The United States is the world’s largest importer of steel, and while many of Mr. Trump’s arguments have focused on cheap steel from countries like China, the European Union as a whole is the single biggest exporter of steel to the United States.”

The Guardian indicated that the Trump administration would devote “the next 15 days to negotiate exemptions with allies.”

Although rebuilding US manufacturing, after decades of erosion and decline, won’t be easy, it is worthwhile. National industry – “making things ” – is the core of a strong domestic economy.

After Trump announced his tariff proposal on March 1, 2018, US Steel stock rose a healthy 6%. As critics fear a total American economic collapse, one analyst for Forbesopined:

“Visions of President Trump’s two ’emergency’ tariffs [on steel and aluminum] causing the strong, broad U.S. economy to stall or go into recession are wrong. Likewise, the U.S. stock market is robust, and having just been through a correction, should retain its bullish stance.”

President Trump, using his typically straightforward language, was quoted by The Guardian article cited above:

“Steel is steel. Without steel, you don’t have a country.”

Are you tired of cheap Chinese goods littering store shelves and garbage dumps? Do you remember, and can you imagine, a country where, when you turned over an item in a shop, it invariably said, “MADE IN THE USA?”

Pride and prosperity are the direct benefits of trade agreements that favor, rather than punish, the citizens of These United States.

Commander-in-Chief Trump understands that an international trade war would move full speed ahead toward revitalizing our anemic domestic production!

More jobs and more money: what’s not to like?

21 Comments

Post Author

I think he is making America first theme a real happening. I will not buy any item made in China If I can help it. I will gladly pay more for an item if it has Made in USA on it .Go President Trump. MAGA .

Post Author

yes all that crap cchina is sending over here is landfill material , 6 months to 1 year ,go buy another one. even if your big box store warranty’s it the old one going in the landfill not back to china , all rejects should go back to china ,they pay !!!

Post Author

You’ve got to be kidding me. You stop the steel and junk from coming in and you will see many great jobs restored to people of the United States of America the greatest nation on earth! We need to revitalize this country and let are great people have jobs again! Go President Trump I had complete faith in you from day one

Post Author

Post Author

The US uses more steel than we produce. By putting a tariff on imported steel you are making it more expense for US factories to purchase the steel they need. The US factories will either have to raise their prices or go out of business . This is another of Trumps terrible ideas!

Post Author

Post Author

Trade war? Bring it on! The US still has a capitalist free market economy. With the greatest level of ingenuity as well. No nation or group of nations can possibly compete with us when the gloves are off. We entered WWII with a tiny army and almost no air forces. We not only armed ourselves, but Britain as well to beat the Nazis and the Japanese imperialists, whose combined military forces and armaments dwarfed the Allies. And we rebuilt Europe after the war at great cost while sustaining a period of economic prosperity never before seen in the US. And that’s even taking into consideration the great upheavals taking place in the America labor force. Don’t ever doubt or discount the residence and strength of the United States and her people. This is STILL the greatest nation on earth. If this weren’t so, our southern border wouldn’t be saturated with people trying to get in!

Post Author

Post Author

DAMN THAT F*****G SPELL CHECKER!
The word is RESILIENCE, dammit. NOT “RESIDENCE.” Why do I have to re-type a GD work 2-3-4 times before I can write what I mean, not what some faceless, brainless POS software intuits what I mean! If I misspell a word, that’s my fault,

Post Author

Clean up both your mind and your language. Before I retired from the Army as an Infantry First Sergeant on Dec. 31, 1975, I used to tell my Drill Sergeants, and others, that the use of vulgarity is the sign of a weak mind seeking to express itself through a lack of both intelligence and vocabulary! Also, take the time to re-read several times what you typed before you post it!

Post Author

Post Author

To have US manufactured products and create jobs is very good, let’s see what those who say this is the greatest think since sliced bread will say when to buy those US products will cost at least 20 or 30% more than what we are paying now. Let’s see how “patriotic” they are when it comes to their pocketbooks, easy to brag, not so easy to put your money where your mouth is. That being said I hope this is good not only for manufacturers but also for the general public.

Post Author

Everybody has their shorts in a wad over Tariffs! Trump is a negotiator and he is aiming for a level playing field. He is reciprocating on selected targets to get them to lower or remove the tariffs they place on goods, they export to us, which will lower the cost to the end user. The tariffs that are placed on our exports into foreign ports, is a tax paid to the foreign government, that will raise the cost to the foreign end user, which has the net effect of decreasing the foreign demand for U. S. products. We have had a negative balance of trade, since the 1950s, meaning we import, more than we export, measured in dollars. Trump is selective on striving for a balance and will achieve his goals. He is why we needed a President that understands how the market works and is a Capitalist. All of the Socialist politicians are vote buying with tax dollars. Supply and Demand economics is not all that difficult.

Post Author

President Trump, as Commander-In-Chief can have all items purchased by our military, to be manufactured in the USA, utilizing domestic materials, unless a restrictive waiver is issued. It may require Congress to make it government wide.